Chapter 15 #2
Howard once told her that he found it fascinating watching her get lost in her painting or drawing and likewise she loved to watch him read. He was always so engrossed it would take a lot for him to look up.
Two months after they met, Howard had been for a browse in the library while Bonnie stayed outside to finish her can of cola. When Howard emerged from the brick building, he’d handed her a book.
She looked at the cover. The Thorn Birds by Colleen McCullough, but shook her head until the way he was looking at her had her take it from him.
‘It’s popular,’ he said. ‘I was very lucky to get a copy.’
‘Then I’m afraid it might be wasted on me. I won’t appreciate it nearly enough.’
As they began to walk he took her hand. ‘It’s been described as an Australian version of Gone With the Wind. A love story. A powerful one at that. Not as good as our love story, but you might enjoy it if you try. Give it a go, for me?’
She couldn’t resist his request but had to point out, ‘You know this is like me making you draw a picture.’
‘I don’t have your talent for drawing, but I know you can read.’
‘All right, I’ll try.’ She’d do anything for Howard.
When they were together the weekend before that she’d had the desperate urge to sketch out a picture of the fields next to the bed and breakfast where they were staying.
They’d gone for a walk and while she sat on the fence taking in everything she could see in a way she always did before she committed anything to paper Howard had run back to the accommodation for her little bag filled with her art supplies and his bag with his book.
You see, while Howard never went anywhere without a book, she rarely went anywhere without a sketch pad and tin of pencils.
She was going to be a nurse, a job she loved, but this was a different part of her that she couldn’t ever give up.
As Howard sat on one side of the stile leading into the field and read, she sat on the other with her sketch pad on her knees and tin of pencils balanced on the fence.
The scenery here was incredible. In the distance was an old shed.
Sheep dotted the hills. There was a beautiful gate a little off centre, and a stone wall to the left, which ran higgledy-piggledy all the way to the top of the hill.
When her neck ached from leaning down over the pad of paper she’d put a hand to it but almost as soon as she did she felt Howard’s larger hands taking away some of the strain with a gentle massage. ‘It’s coming on,’ he’d said, looking down at her sketch so far. ‘I don’t know how you manage it.’
She flipped the paper over. ‘Give it a go.’
‘Me, no.’ He climbed over the stile so they were together again. ‘I can’t draw at all.’
‘Have you tried?’
‘Every kid tries,’ he said.
‘You’re not a kid.’ She handed him the pad with the fresh sheet showing and passed him a pencil.
‘Draw what you see.’ She looked out at the view; it really was beautiful. And the sheep gave a wonderful detail to the landscape.
When she looked down to see what he’d done so far she started to laugh and he put a hand around her waist, pulling her body closer.
‘Howard…’ He’d drawn a big heart and written their names inside. But she’d dipped her head and kissed him until he eventually let her get back to her drawing.
They found a café and she took The Thorn Birds from Howard when he handed it to her. For almost half an hour – a very long half an hour for Bonnie – they sipped on hot chocolates and as Howard read The Shining by Stephen King, Bonnie did her best.
‘Well?’ he asked.
‘It’s well written,’ she said brightly. ‘I’ll persevere.’ His questioning glance had her admitting, ‘It will feel like a chore, like reading for my nursing studies except not as useful.’ She covered her face. ‘I’m sorry, it’s not what you want to hear.’
‘It’s fine.’ He slipped his book and hers into his bag. ‘Come on, the library isn’t closed yet. We’ll pop your book back. It’s heavily in demand.’
Outside she hooked her arm into his. ‘Are you very upset with me?’
‘Of course not. But that doesn’t mean I won’t keep trying with you.’
He didn’t push it much at all over the years, just a gentle nudge every now and then, and sometimes she tried, sometimes she made it through a few chapters of whatever he suggested for her.
It was only when they were married that she told him what had put her off reading.
They’d been ripping off old wallpaper from the master bedroom of the Victorian terraced house they’d managed to buy in Reading and Howard was already talking about an old bookshelf he’d seen for sale in the second-hand furniture shop down the end of the road.
‘It’ll look good if I re-stain the wood,’ he’d told her. ‘I’d say it could fit fifty to sixty books.’
‘You’re going to fill this whole house with books, aren’t you?’ She’d turned, wallpaper scraper in hand, her hair beneath a paisley headscarf to protect it from the debris involved with decorating. ‘Admit it.’
‘Only if it’s all right with you. We could allocate you a shelf perhaps. Just in case you get into reading some day.’
‘Maybe I’ll have an art shelf instead. You know I’m not bothered about books.’ She carried on scraping but turned at a thud.
He’d fallen to his knees, hands clasped against his chest. ‘Not bothered about books?’ he breathed rapidly as if her comment had wounded him.
‘Get up, you daft man.’ She laughed. ‘I didn’t say I wasn’t bothered about you.
’ She hesitated. She didn’t meet his eye.
She carried on with scraping the paper from the wall.
‘At school, I struggled… to read. I was later to learn than most, and I was always really embarrassed because my friends all got it and I didn’t.
’ She could feel him watching her. ‘I wasn’t dyslexic, I was just slower to pick it up.
I had difficulty working out the sounds of the letters and the longer it went on the worse it got because I felt stupid. ’
She felt his hand on hers and he gently tugged so that she stepped down off the stool and stood facing him. He took the scraper, set it on the windowsill and reached for her other hand. ‘You were never stupid. Please don’t ever say that.’
‘I know, but I felt it. My friends didn’t laugh, nobody in class did, and I know I was lucky for that. But I never felt the enjoyment that my peers would when they opened a book, because I’d be faced with another battle.’
‘But you learned in the end.’
‘I did, but by then, I suppose, I associated books with struggle. And I never really wanted to try for pleasure. My favourite room at school was the art room. In there, I felt I was myself. I could be free; I could do anything. I was a different person. But art was a small portion of school, the rest seemed to involve countless books to read to learn everything.’
‘So reading became necessity not a pleasure.’
‘Exactly, I did it for my nursing studies but there was a purpose for that.’
‘But pleasure is a purpose.’
She leaned in and kissed him firmly on the lips. ‘I’m happy, Howard. For me, painting is my joy; even painting this ceiling tomorrow will be fun.’
Howard raised his eyebrows in doubt. ‘Remember you complained of neck ache after painting the lounge ceiling.’
Her nose scrunched in realisation. ‘I’d forgotten that. But do you understand?’ Suddenly coy she looked down at the bare floorboards. ‘About the books.’
His fingers lifted her chin up so she was looking him in the eye. ‘Of course I do. Painting is your joy; books are mine.’ Then he smiled. ‘You know what else is my joy?’
She began to giggle as he trailed kisses all down her neck. He opened the buttons of her shirt, they peeled each other’s clothes off, and they made love there and then on top of the sheets piled in the corner ready to lay over the floor before they painted.
As she laid her head against his chest and ran her fingers through the hairs, she reminded him of the bookcase he’d talked about buying. ‘Where will you put it?’ she asked.
‘I think it’ll look really good in the dining room.’
‘Then you should go and get it, before someone else does.’
She’d never seen him pull his clothes on quite so fast. After he gave her one more kiss of course.
Now she realised that she was smiling at the memory as she sat in his chair in this beautiful cottage in Driftwick Bay.
He would hate the way she was now. He’d want her to pull herself together and rejoin the world.
He’d remind her that this cottage and this town were her home.
And she knew he’d be devastated that she was even considering selling the bookshop to the developer.
But a piece of her was missing. Things had changed. The world was different now without Howard.
And it would be different for the rest of her days.